nicola ratti – process part 274

If I were to answer, “Why do you do what you do?” I would say, “It is because of how I imagine the future.”

For me, it’s all about that. I moved into art so that I could build a place where all my thoughts projected forward and split into something real — music, soundart, pictures and so on. It is a feeling, maybe a hidden one, that grows from the inside and tries to step out. Art is the place where thoughts grow into shapes. So the point is, how do I find a way to let them live outside that place, without me?

I’m really interested in the ways that music lives without the musician. A lot of musicians, including me, use loops during their live sets and recording takes. Some live sets are mostly based on layering loops upon loops. Sometimes I like to imagine that I could leave the stage and that my instruments would go on without me. I shift positions from the composer to the audience. That’s incredible. It is an exciting example of a separation process.

I’m getting more and more into soundart projects as “places” where things I say can be tried. I’m really convinced art should live without the artist. The music that I — and a lot of others — am doing lately is a beautiful occasion to test this theory, and not just through recording (on cd, lp, mc, digitally, etc.).

The track below is taken from my last album “Ode” on the Sydney based label Preservation. It’s called “Tropical Malady” as the title of the Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s movie. The music here moves from the clash of light and dark in the movie (its atmosphere). And here I sit, listening to my music as I would listen to the leaves in the dark night of a tropical forest.